InstantAction Beta Blog

Chat About Legions

This is your reminder.  The chat is tomorrow, May 1st, 3pm PST.  I'll be posting tomorrow so you can chat here on the blog.  Or you can always go to the Ustream page to chat and watch the conversation: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/legions-live-chat.  As always you'll need to register at Ustream and login if you want to participate in the talk. 

Thomas is the Lead Designer on Legions so make sure you get questions ready that are geared for him to answer.  We'll see ya tomorrow!

Read the original post for more info.

-Dr Wiley

Connection Error Problems Fixed

The discovery process for people using NAT translation was not working properly for TT and Legions.  People were experiencing a "Connection Error" while trying to join these games, instead of "Ready". 

This issue has been fixed.

We apologize for any inconvenience or lack of gaming that this may have caused over the weekend.

-Dr Wiley

Live Chat with Thomas Buscaglia

This Thursday we'll be having Thomas Buscaglia aka "MungeParty", Lead Designer on Legions, chat with us about the game. 

Here is a self portrait:

    The facts:

• What: Live chat with Lead Designer of Fallen Empire: Legions
• When: Thursday, May 1, 3pm PST
• Where: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/legions-live-chat
• Who: Thomas Buscaglia, aka "MungeParty"
• Why: So you can ask questions about Legions and hopefully get some answers.  :)

More info to come as the date approaches.

-Dr Wiley

New Avatars Available

Guess What!  You can get some new avatars for your profile on InstantAction now.  They are currently available for 100 ActionTokens per pack.  They look neat and some of them have food on them.  Below is a sample of some of the packs.

To access these new avatars, log in to your InstantAction account, then click profile, and choose to change your avatar.  There's also a new avatar selection screen.  Be jealous of my Ham avatar!

-Dr Wiley

InstantAction Spotlight!

GamerName: ZhouYu

"I'm 18 and a Londoner born and bred.

I started playing online about 4 years ago, chiefly with diablo2 on open battlenet with haxed characters. A while after that I moved onto Savage and there met my first clan; Dynasty Warriors. With dw I moved from Savage to Tribes: vengeance, I started my own division for it and dw T:v became known as one of the more famous (and one of the least competent) clans in Eu T:V back in the day. I've played t:v since a little while after release, capping all the way, and after dw T:v eventually folded to real life concerns I joined up with Original Crime, who then changed names to Most Wanted. MW is pretty much the premier Eu team, and we still have good games every Sunday in the excellent Asylum league that is currently running.

Back in 2006 or so I became the TWL T:v European admin, largely because noone else wanted the job. I believe that my attempts to keep the Eu community alive during period were always just on the right side of necrophilia. Eu TWL T:v eventually trailed off as comp T:v suffered from a famine of decent players and teams, and I'm now just happy playing rather than organising.

Intermittently I've played other games ofc, enjoying a long stint in the Et:qw closed beta (from February 2007 to Julyish) and becoming a GVF member in the community forums for that game. I also had a short stint with the Et:qw Dignitas team during my open and closed beta time, but left because of RL issues.

In other beta work I spent a good while playing in the Dark Messiah of Might and Magic MP beta and even won a (pretty crappy) motherboard in the TWL competition for that game. I left that scene after release as the community started small and wasn't going anywhere fast and I didn't want to spend another three years of my life watching a favorite game slowly die *cough* T:v *cough*.

Otherwise I have probably played about about ten minutes of T1 and T2 in my life and seem to be none the worse for wear, I'm enjoying the Legions beta, especially the movement and the nutty stuff you can do with OD ^_^.

Zhou"

Maintenance Mode!

You've most likely seen this image:

But what does it all mean?  Here is a rundown of what to expect when you see this.

• We perform updates to the site regularly, so if you see this image, it probably means we are updating the site. 
• You can usually expect the site to be back up within 60 minutes or so.  This might not always be the case, but it should be around that time frame if everything goes according to plan.
• If you see this and it isn't planned, I'll do my bestest to post here to let everyone know what the deal is.

Here are some things you can do while the site is in maintenance mode:

• Read a book, or watch an informative movie.
• Go outside and enjoy the sun, or rain, or snow.  Whatever the case may be.
• Have a conversation with a loved one -- Get to know your parents better.
• Go get some food in your stomach.  You know your hungry.
• Pick up a hobby or learn a skill.
• Do some work!

-Dr Wiley

Web 2.0 Expo

Hey Everyone, Mark Frohnmayar, who worked on ZAP, Marble Blast, and Tribes, is attending the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco through April 25th.  if you're a web 2.0/social gaming extroadinaire and are in the SF area during those times and also want to chew the fat with one of the pioneers, let us know.  We might be able to hook you up and you can talk about InstantAction, GarageGames, Web 2.0, the future, or whatever. 

Post a comment here and I'll see what I can do.  Make sure you provide a valid email address I so can contact you.

-Dr Wiley

Rokkitball on Gametrailers

Gametrailers.com has the trailer of Rokkitball up and a whole boatload of comments.  Check out the trailer below or head on over to gametrailers to get in on the commenting action.

Don't forget to head to the forums and participate in all the conversations that are going on about Rokkitball.  Here are some interesting threads:

• Rokkitball Known Issues
• Rokkitball Tournament
• Rokkitball Cheat Sheet
• Get involved in the Rokkitball Clans forum section

That's about it for right now.  Enjoy!

-Dr Wiley

Who Would You Like to Talk to?

So far we've had some very informative talks with Tim Aste on the Legions team, some members of the Z.A.P. team, the marketing people, and Alex Swanson from Rokkitball.  I'm just curious what kind of conversations would intrigue you guys and maybe someone in particular that you'd like to chat live with.  Leave your ideas and suggestions in the blog post as a comment and hopefully we'll be able to make some dreams come true.

Now, just because you post something doesn't mean we are going to get them and talk about it, but I'm just wondering what might be rolling around in your heads that you'd like to have answered.  Bring the good ideas!

-Dr Wiley

Issues with New Releases

   Problems That Occur After a New Release

The InstantAction team is always working to bring you the best and most entertaining experience. This means that we will periodically release new versions of current InstantAction titles, update the InstantAction platform and bring you new and exciting titles.

However, sometimes these releases are accompanied by new issues. These may include:

• Display errors at the InstantAction home screen


• Friends list display errors


• Connection errors


• In-game graphical errors


• Inbox errors


• Loading issues


• Unpredictable/unusual behavior

Fixing Issues After a Recent Release

Clearing your Internet cache will solve many problems listed above. Instructions on how to clear your Internet cache are as follows:

How To Clear Your Internet Explorer Cache

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click the "Tools" button in the Internet Explorer menu bar
3. Select "Internet Options"
4. Click the "Delete..." button in the "browsing history" section of the Internet Options window.
5. Click the "Delete Files" button.
6. Click the "Yes" button.
7. Close and reopen Internet Explorer.

How To Clear Your Firefox Cache

1. Open Firefox.
2. Select "Tools" from the Firefox menu bar.
3. Select "Clear Private Data...".
4. Uncheck all boxes except "cache".
5. Click the "Clear Private Data Now" button.
6. Close and reopen Firefox.

Contacting Support

Clearing the Internet cache solves many issues pertaining to a new release. However, if you have noticed new bugs or problems with a new release that clearing your cache does not solve please contact InstantAction support.

Contacting InstantAction Support for help and support (link)

Contacting InstantAction Support to report a bug (link)

Rokkitball and You!

Rokkitball is here for your enjoyment.  Log in, start or join a game, and blast the ball into those goals.  With up to 8 player support, work as a team and get the ball into the opponents goal.  Teamwork is key guys, so work together.  Thanks for waiting and let us know what you think in the forums.

If for some reason you would rather watch this video than play.  Feel free to do so below:

-Dr Wiley

Rokkitball and Latest Version of InstantAction

Hey Everyone,

Rokkitball and the latest push are not yet ready for the public to see, so we are delaying the release until early next week.  I know this happens in the gaming world and it irritates me too.  But honestly, all the delays really are for the better.  Rokkitball is awesome and we want everyone to experience it that way.  Once again, sorry for the delay.

-Dr Wiley

Round 3 Contest Winners

Results are in.  Sorry about the delay, it's been crazy around here.  But here are the winners from the third round of contest action.

Poonster
GReaper
cruelbeast
xdemonx
TAA_WAR
Br16uy
-Gmoney
Thalamus
harlei
Spierek
Collin9476
Dominate
adr14n
dragolian
liaght
cathaychris
Flash-X
supersix
Hybrid
Twitch911

Thanks again to everyone who participated in these rounds of contests.

-Dr Wiley

Rokkitball Release and InstantAction Update

Hello everyone.  I know people are excited to play Rokkitball and some of you are excited to get in on some action of the Legions private beta.  So here is the update of what's going on.

Rokkitball - The release of Rokkitball ran into some hiccups that have delayed its release until tomorrow, Friday, April 18th.  We are all excited about how awesome it is going to be so we wanted to make sure those issues got ironed out before rushing its release.

Legions/InstantAction update - This update has been delayed a bit as well, but we should see it going up tonight.  That means those folks who won their way into the beta will have access to the Legions as soon as this goes live.  Once again we apologize for the delay in this, but hiccups happen and we have to roll with 'em. 

Thanks everyone for your understanding and patience in this matter.

-Dr Wiley

Chat With Alex Swanson Here!

Today is the day you can talk with Alex Swanson about Rokkitball or whatever.  Log in and chat in this post or head to the Ustream page: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rokkitball-live-chat.  The chat starts at 3pm PST so be here!

Rokkitball on Kotaku!

Kotaku.com has posted a bit of information about Rokkitball.  If you want some shiny screens and some information about what the game is all about head over to the exclusive Rokkitball post on Kotaku.

I'd post the screenshots, but they're exclusive.  So you NEED to go over there to see them.

For ease of use, I will link to some of the screenshots below:

• D-Fence!
• GOAAAAAAAL!
• Ninja guy!

That's all.  Go there!

-Dr Wiley

New Screwjumper!

In case you didn't notice the box art on InstantAction for Screwjumper, it's been revamped.  Below you will see the new features in the game:

 Multiplayer:

Multiplayer is all new.  This mode features a new race mode and 8 new crazy maps.  The goal, as with any racing game, is to get to the target before all of your competitors do. 

In addition to the new multiplayer version of the game, Screwjumper has also gotten tighter controls in both single player and multiplayer.  Both mouse, controller, and keyboard controllers are much more solid now.

So login and check out the new Screwjumper.

-Dr Wiley

InstantAction Spotlight

Gamername: Badazz

"Well gaming is something I always enjoyed. I started in my teens, playing pong and simple games as they came out. I played Star Wars and Frogger, I played at all the arcades I came across. My dad liked pinball and video games, so he didn't protect me from this addiction at all. I used to babysit and get griped at by him though for spending all my money at the Bowling Alley! But man, they had Gyrus, and they had Pacman, and they had Defender and Pinball, and so many choices, plus you could get a snack and a pop and all the other game geeks were there, so you could watch them play and learn new tricks! Or just sit there amazed at the scores they wracked up! What was the name of the game with the Ostrich and the Eggs?  Huh man that one was hard! but it was cool to bounce around and fly, right?!!!

When I got the Nintendo I almost ruined my life. Tetris was my friend. I was Tetris friend. Tetris and I did everything together. Puzzle games have always enthralled me. I love to figure things out, my eyes and hands work fast, and I can just think... think while playing Tetris. Or get so high up in levels that you don't get a chance to think anymore! I have enjoyed every style of tetris mod that has come out. I have played a collection of puzzle games and troubleshooting has become a second nature to me.

On to Sega and Sonic the Hedgehog. OMG... That game was so awesome, graphics, action, cool levels, increased speed, wow. Then I was addicted. To my friends Sega. I was a mom by then and couldn't afford that addiction. I had already given my nintendo to my brother and given it up, but now there was Sonic. How do you say no to Sonic? My friend helped when I said, Girl, I can't do this. So we limited my time! and eventually I got away from it.

I finished raising my kids, occasionally taking them to the arcade and playing a little bit. Then the bars got those cool games on the counter. Hmmmm that is fun. Okay Ya, I can do this. And I DID. Then I met Tim, Tim and I were good to go taking turns playing on the counter game!! Then we got a pc, and I crashed it while hosting forums and pissing someone off, who sent me huge files in my small mailbox that my poor little laptop couldn't stomach. Bad... Soooo KickUass, our ISP provider at the time, said sorry kids, it's a goner. He was kind and understanding and helped build us a cheap computer, found a monitor for us from the back room and set us back up. He also took time to educate me about being online and how NOT to let that happen to my PC again Smiley.

During that time, Kick and Tim became friends, and Tim and Kick would work on puters, build, troulbeshoot, antivirus and build. Kick started catching Tim up to the modern day computer set ups and OS and all that jazz. Kick started showing me about web site and graphics design. He didn't teach me, he gave me the tools and said go find the Tutorials. I spent some time dabbling in all this, and figured out how it works, and then got a fulltime job and didn't play with it so much.

Tim and Kick kept on working on PC's and all during the time we were there, he would play Tribes 2 in between tasks. ALL THE TIME. and he would stay after work and do competitions. Eventually he let Tim play, under his account, then he got the game for him! By then I had a good pc that I bought with my income tax return! I spent over a 1000 bucks on that baby.  Kick and Tim custom built it and it was great and when Tim got Tribes 2, he started using my pc at home to play it lol. Well the rest is history.

We all play now, Tim as LoneWolf8, Me As Badazz and My son as ToeTag. We eventually started running our own server and killed a war of clans and started building a whole new way of running a community server and site. The membres of Elite Warriors Online help us make decisions, are part of the every day life and breath of our community development. We help newbies play games, keep their computers clean and up to date online, and provide a friendly place for all gamers to hang out. We are a bunch of nonconformists, but we are also mature gamers for the most part. We believe in fair play, following the rules of the game, and no cheating. We believe in our rights as US citizens to think for ourselves, speak our mind and love getting to know the rest of the world and creating a place where everyone from everywhere is welcome. Elite Warriors Online speaks for itself.

We are now at 1100+ members, have been here for a couple of years and we are hosting more games and the biggest Tribes 2 event ever. Friday Night Fights --Every Friday. We play Base Tribes 2, with 40-70 people in the server, usually more than 50! I am now also involved with RenWerX and their endeavor to create an FPS called Ascension that lives in the genre of FPS +Z.  I am the Lead Recruiter, whip handler, and assist the community person Teratos. As a member of Great Games Experiment from beta til today, I have gotten to know a lot of GG employees and members. Great guys and gals with loads of creativity and ingenuity. I was a moving force in building the GG community and enjoying how well it supported my endeavors as a Community Dev for EWo and Recruiter for Renwerx. Now with Instant Action coming, I am ready to be a part of the scene here in the newest innovation in gaming. 3D in the browser!  With community assets! Bravo!"

Whew, thanks Badazz.

-Dr Wiley

Rokkitball Chat with Alex Swanson

Don't forget that tomorrow is your chance to chat up Alex Swanson, Designer/Director on Rokkitball.  Don't forget that Alex also worked on ThinkTanks and Marble Blast.  So get questions for those games ready as well as your Rokkitball questions. 

I like to let you know who you will be talking to, so here is a picture of Alex:

As you can see Alex is a cheerful guy.  He is looking forward to answering your questions.  So join us tomorrow, April 17th at 3pm PST either here on the blog, or on the Ustream page via this link;

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rokkitball-live-chat (thanks jbootlegger)
Don't forget that you'll need to register in order to participate in the conversation.

Check the original post for all the details.  See all of you tomorrow.

-Dr Wiley

THIS JUST IN!!!

Click here to download the full size wallpaper

Shacknews Photoshop Contest Winners

The results are in and have been tallied up.  Since we had a three way tie for the positions of 4th and 5th, we've added a 6th winner as well.  Below you will find the top 6 winners.  The winners will be notified via email that they have won, however, if you are a winner, and you haven't created an InstantAction account yet, or your account name is different than the name we have, please comment with your username below.  I'm looking at you altz0r and miri.hs!

So here they are:

rodein
uberstu
altz0r
miri.hs
jet-poop
CptKami

Thanks to everyone who participated and thanks to Shacknews for putting this on.

-Dr Wiley

InstantAction Tech & Architecture

This Friday we will be interviewing Michiel Frishert, InstantAction Architecture, and we need some questions that you guys might be interested in.  Post your suggestions as a comment and we'll try to get as many answers in there as we can.  The final pre-recorded video will be posted sometime next week.  I'll let ya know.

We're looking for questions like:

"How in the world does InstantAction work?"  Or perhaps, "How are you planning to scale InstantAction as it is undoubtedly going to grow exponentially."  You get the gist. 

This is the guy that you will be answering the questions:

He likes Steampunk

He's a smart guy so make them nice and challenging.

Reminder:  This is not a live chat, so we need questions in advance.

-Dr Wiley

Live Chat with Dylan Romero Today!

Feel free to use this post to chat with Dylan Romero at 3pm PST or head to Ustream to log in.

Don't forget to register so you can chat along.

Reminder to Chat with Dylan Romero

I told you I would remind you about the chat with Dylan Romero, so here is that reminder.  Tomorrow, April 15th, at 3pm PST is the time.  Be there and you'll get to ask Marketing questions to this guy:

For all the info check out the "It's Finally Here, Chat with Dylan Romero!"

-Dr Wiley

Another Chance 2

click image to enlarge

Alright, so you missed out in round 1, and then you were out of the country through round 2, well this is your last chance to get into the Legions private beta. 

Here's what you have to do.  Invite as many new people to join InstantAction as you possibly can.  Your previous invites count towards your total, so add to your list of invites by sending them to your friends and family members.

• The top 20 people who invite the most friends to InstantAction win!
  

• Winners will receive a spiffy Legions avatar and access for themselves and 2 friends to the Legions private beta.

That's it.  Invite, friends create accounts, get into the Legions private beta.  As a bonus you'll have friends on InstantAction to play with or against.

Don't forget to read up on the difference between inviting and adding friends to InstantAction.

- Dr Wiley

Rokkitball and Alex Swanson chat

Alex Swanson (Designer/Director for Rokkitball) will be the guest of honor in a chat session this Thursday, April 17th, at 3:00pm PST.

Alex has worked on many games at GarageGames and is working on several titles that will appear on InstantAction.  Alex did many of the levels that you see in Marble Blast Online, so you can curse him for those challenging ones.  He has also worked on ThinkTanks as project director for the InstantAction version.  The game that he'll be representing this Thursday, however, is Rokkitball.  Feel free to ask questions about his work history though.

What is Rokkitball?  Well...Rokkitball unites the best qualities of shooters and sports games: precision controls, with strategic team based gameplay - all in the frenetic atmosphere of a futuristic sports arena.

Here are the details so you can get in on the chat

• What?  Rokkitball chat session
• When?  Thursday April 17th, at 3pm PST
• Who?  Alex Swanson
• Why?  Because Rokkitball is a new addition to InstantAction and it's coming soon!
• Where? Either on the blog post that will be up tomorrow or, via Ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rokkitball-live-chat

Here is an awesome wallpaper for Rokkitball for your enjoyment, created by Chris Flanagan.

Click to grab the fullsize image

Shacknews Photoshop Contest Reminder

Tomorrow is the deadline to vote for your favorite Legions Photoshop work.  Here is the leader of the pack so far:

Is there an artist you really want to win?  Get to the original post for full contest details and to cast your vote for your favorite.  Remember the top 5 will gain access to the Legions private beta, and you all decide who the top 5 are.

-Dr Wiley

It's Finally Here, Chat with Dylan Romero

Dylan Romero is a man-boy who hails from America's Hat -- Canada.  He has been living among people for the past 24 years and has worked at GarageGames for the past year or so. 

Dylan works on the InstantAction Marketing Team and likes to answer questions related to InstantAction on the Marketing side of things, so now is your time to ask all those questions you've been asking in the previous chats. 

So this Tuesday, April 15th you'll finally get some answers...maybe.  Dylan is very eager to show his face on camera and make his live feed debut supporting InstantAction.  If everything goes well we might be able to do another chat featuring Dylan.

Please keep your questions related to the Marketing side of InstantAction and not geared toward Dylan's personal interests.  No questions about favorite food, or favorite thing to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon.  I've seen some good questions and Dylan should have the chops to give you good answers.

Details:

• When: Tuesday April 15th, at 3pm PST
• Where: I'll have a blog post that you can chat from or you can visit the Ustream page here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/instantaction-live-chat
• Who: Why Dylan Romero of course!
• Why: Because people keep asking Marketing questions to the guys who are developing games.  Now you'll finally get some answers for those questions.

Be there.  I will.

-Dr Wiley

The Winners for Round 2 Are In

Well you waited, and I've tallied up the winners.  Here they are in no particular order:

Crafty615
Noopy2394
Sk84food29
Cc7700
Flamingsword_1
Nasir91
Stguy045
Hunter2.0
Ultrablast
Bringerofthecow
The7upMan
GrearOne
Hornet-Wing
Byczek
Schisser
Charis
ZeroVelocity
Balthier
Nibbler234
1Pig--
MausGMR
Wii_addict
Synsane
Jufis89
Broesmeli
KodiakSource
LolStevz
Thok150
iten__
hoboman

Winners will be contacted via email soon and notified of the next steps. 

Your name isn't on the list?  OH NOES!!!  Don't worry, we've got another round of the contest starting so don't quit inviting your friends.   More info on the contest to come tomorrow, that's Friday, April 11th.

-Dr Wiley

Chat with Mark Frohnmayer Right Here!

At 3:00pm PST you'll be able to chat with Mark Frohnmayer right in this blog post.  Or if you prefer you can hit up the chat on Ustream via this link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/zap-live-chat0

 

 

Something to watch while you wait!

Current Known Issue

Heads up with a current known issue.

InstantAction e-mails are not being sent properly. You may or may not receive e-mails from InstantAction including party invites, friend invites and confirmation e-mails. We are working to correct this and hope to have the issue resolved soon.

For a list of all known issues please visit the InstantAction Support Center.

-Dr Wiley

Last Chance to Invite for Legions beta Contest

Today is the last day for the Legions private beta contest.  You've got until 11:59pm PST to invite everyone you know to join InstantAction and grab your spot in the Legions private beta.

Click here for the full contest details.

Here are some images for incentive:

Mark Frohnmayer Live Chat

Don't forget that your chance to talk to Mark Frohnmayer is this Thursday, April 10th, at 3pm PST. 

This is the time to chat him up about ZAP, Tribes, Marble Blast, or anything else InstantAction related that he might have an answer for. 

Mark has been around the industry a while and has a lot of knowledge in that noggin so get your questions ready and pick his brain for answers to your questions

For the full chat info check out the original post.

-Dr Wiley

Shacknews Photoshop Contest

my attempt at photoshop

This time, it's your turn.  Choose your favorite Legions photoshop-ped image from the huge list of entries.  Head over to Shacknews to view the gallery, make note of the number of your favorite image, post a comment with the number of the photo.  That's it.

• What they get:  Access to the Fallen Empire: Legions private beta.

I know mine isn't good and it doesn't make any sense, so go pick something that's better than mine.  And besides, they're funny.

Here's what I'm looking for in your comment:

The name of the artist and the number of the image.  ex:

click to enlarge

That's it, easy, fun, artistic.  We'll post the top 5 winners next Tuesday, April 15th. 

-Dr Wiley

Mark Frohnmayer live chat

Who is Mark Frohnmayer?

You may know Mark back from the Tribes days.  He's got quite the background so here's a bit of his bio from his GarageGames profile.

"I have worked at GarageGames since the start, having co-founded it with Rick, Jeff and Tim. Back before we were a big boat with a big idea we were a tiny life raft with a big idea, and so I have had a chance to wear many hats: engine programmer and architect (on the original Torque), game designer and programmer (on Marble Blast and Zap), producer (on MBU) and even executive (as the President of the company from mid 2005 through the end of 2006 ). Currently I am working on a variety of interesting projects.

Before GarageGames I was employed by Dynamix (a division of Sierra, which was first a publicly traded company, then a division of CUC International which merged with HFS to form Cendant, whose financial chicanery caused them to divest of games selling Sierra+Blizzard+others to Havas, a division of Vivendi). At Dynamix I did general game technology programming as well as design and programming on the Starseige Tribes and TRIBES 2 games. In an odd coincidence of timing Sierra shut down Dynamix on the same day GarageGames launched the Torque Game Engine (our first product; then branded the V12) into the web."

Mark Frohnmayer will be chatting live this Thursday, April 10th, at 3pm PST.   Get all those questions ready, because this is a once in a lifetime event!

For more information click here!

Contest What?

This is your reminder that you should be participating in the Contest to invite the most new people to join InstantAction before the 9th of April.  That's right invite new people to join.  Don't add tons of people to your friends list because that will not make you win. 

Do you want to be in the Fallen Empire: Legions private beta?  Do want to be the envy of all the kids on the block?  Do you want this?

Click image to enlarge

INVITE THEN!  The difference between inviting and adding friends.

The contest ends April 9th 11:59pm PST, get those invites rolling out and get invited to the Legions private beta.

-Dr Wiley

Live Chat Information

The good news is that this Thursday you'll be able to chat and ask questions with Mark Frohnmayer (Lead Developer on Tribes, Lead Designer on Marble Blast, Z.A.P. developer, and GarageGames co-founder).  The chat starts at 3pm PST and will run around an hour depending on the supply of questions from you guys. 

The bad news is that the chat with Dylan Romero (Marketing Genius) has been postponed due to scheduling conflicts. 

Here's the rundown:

• What: Chat about Z.A.P., Tribes, or whatever with developers.
• Where: Ustream - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/zap-live-chat0
• Who: Mark Frohnmayer
• When: Thursday, April 10th, 3 pm PST at the Ustream link provided above or the blog post that you'll find on Thursday.

Here's who you'll be talking to:

Mark Frohnmayer

Here's who you won't be talking to:

Dylan Romero

I'll keep you posted on when you can finally make Dylan happy by talking to him.

-Dr Wiley

In Regards to Contest Cheating

We have examined the cheating and taken action.  The next five people that were on the list of the top 30 are going to be let into the beta. 

The following are the next people that will be able to participate in the Legions private beta:

GreyHound
idolminds
IsraeliRD
dabrown
Unknown

Congratulations guys and you'll be notified soon about how you can get in the action.

-Dr Wiley

GarageGames' Garney and BlockLand dev Hartman on GameDev.

"So you downloaded MAME and purchased licenses to every ROM for it. Now you have three thousand games, give or take a thousand. Infinite fun, right? Not exactly, but you do have access to a resource for learning some valuable lessons about game design."

Good informative read about the classics and what they can teach you. Check out the full article on GameDev.net.   

-Dr Wiley

Chat with the InstantAction Marketing Peeps

There were a lot of questions for Tim Aste, Director of Legions, when we did the live interview a couple weeks ago.  But there were also a lot of questions that were geared toward the Marketing side of InstantAction.  What are we going to do about this?  We're going to give you the chance to ask all the marketing questions you can throw at Dylan Romero, InstantAction Marketing Guy.

Dylan Romero

• What:  A live interview/Q & A/friendly chatfest.  We'll be talking at length about the InstantAction web-based gaming console and site. We'll take questions on current operations, future plans, marketing issues and whatever else comes up.

• When:  April 8, 2008, 2pm PST (rescheduled)

• Where:  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/instantaction-live-chat, or you can view the blog post which will have the feed and a handy chat window.

• Why:  To answer any and all questions you may have.  Well the questions Dylan feels like answering anyway.

See ya there and I'll post a reminder tomorrow.

-Dr Wiley

InstantAction Forums get a Makeover

If you don't ever visit the InstantAction forums, what's wrong with you?  If you haven't visited the forums in a while, what's wrong with you?  If you are hanging out on the forums all the time you've probably noticed the new face lift they've received.  To get to the forums all you need to do is click the link on the lower right of every page that says 'Beta Feedback Forums'.  For those of you who don't like to read, I present images...

Click image to enlarge

Thanks to the design team for making these forums look the best they've ever looked.  To whatthecrap, ZombieGorilla, blamFantastico, and Dangerman, many pats on the back.  Forums are a great way to chat and interact with other community members.  You can also make friends, help other people out that are having troubles, participate in creating art, talk about your favorite games, get a clan together, provide suggestions, you get the point.  Forums are plain rad.

To get there you can click the 'Beta Feedback Forums' link or follow this link and login with your InstantAction information: http://forum.beta.instantaction.com/smf.   So go there, chat up a storm, and give props to the creative talent behind the design.

-Dr Wiley

Oh yeah, here's what the forums look like:

Click image to enlarge

InstantAction Spotlight

It's back!  The InstantAction blog Spotlight.  This week I bring you Guardian_Matrix. Guardian Matrix you ask?  From Reboot?  Duh.  I knew that, I swear.

Gamername: Guardian_Matrix

"The very foundation of my existence was rocked when I was given my first console gaming system, the NES, by my grandparents at three years old. Along with that came Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. I was immediately hooked on the simplistic yet challenging side-scroller. Of course, I was three years old so I was probably thinking "WEEEEEEE" as I boldly jumped into the same pit over and over again. It didn't take long to get the hang of it, however. Shortly after my Mario days came the first Legend of Zelda game. In all the cartridge's magnificent, golden glory, I was enthralled in Link's adventure to save the princess Zelda. It was at that moment I decided that I wanted to be a person who makes video games. The rest, as they say, "was history."

Yes, I literally said "I want to make that!" while pointing at the screen. Time went by as little by little I learned what was necessary to create video games. To put this in perspective, for years I thought that games were made the same way I played them; through the console. Imagine my surprise when I figured out that they are "programmed" using "computers."

Well it just so happened that we bought our first computer (I'm not counting the windows 3.1 machine with the huge floppy drive) which was to be used by the family AND for my parent's business. While still into console gaming (Goldeneye, Zelda, Nintendo 64 stuff) I got into PC games like the Diablo and Warcraft series. Then my friend introduced me to Tribes 1. My FPS world was changed. This was the first time I ever heard of "open-source" and the ability to nearly create my own weapons, armors, etc. Essentially, Tribes was my entry point into ACTUAL programming. Following closely to that incident was learning how easy it was to create webpages and dabbling in web design on my 56k modem.

High school gave me a boost in programming knowledge as that is where I learned my first coding language, Visual Basic, along with the basics of Java and C++ (No thanks to my horrible teacher). After my first college class programming in Java, however, my love for video games is rivaled by my passion for coding.

So here I am today, continuing my quest to learn how to create a video game by double-majoring in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. I'm currently a Junior attending the University of Nebraska.

If anyone would like to get together/wouldn't mind a novice on board for a game developing project, I would definitely be interested!"

Thanks Mr. Matrix.  Dig the power glove.

Do you want your story on the blog?  Want everyone on InstantAction to read about you and bask in your gaming past?  Get active!  You hate going outside you say?  You don't like moving around?  You don't have to.  Help others out on the community forums, report  bugs via support@instantaction.com (take a look at the known issues list first though), and obviously play games from the comfort of your chair.  Trust me, we notice helpful people!

-Dr Wiley

The Difference Between Inviting and Adding Friends

There's been a bit of confusion about the contest to get into the Legions private beta.  Allow me to clarify in this post.

Inviting Friends - To invite a friend is to send an email via the invite system to invite people that you know to join InstantAction. 

Adding Friends - To add a friend is to find someone already playing on InstantAction and send them a friend request. 

The contest to gain access to the Legions private beta that is currently underway is to invite new people(via their email address) to InstantAction; and these are usually people that you already know.   Not people that are already on InstantAction.

I like visuals, they help me...visualize things, so here you can see what adding friends looks like versus inviting friends. 

Click to enlarge the image!

Feel free to send friend requests to people on InstantAction, just know that having super-inflated friends lists will do nothing to get you closer to the Legions private beta.  Sure you'll be able to brag to your mother that you have thousands of friends on InstantAction, but the Legions private beta doesn't care about this list.  And remember, not everyone wants to be your friend, sometimes they don't know you and sometimes they just don't like you. 

Hope this clears things up a bit.

-Dr Wiley

Another Chance to Win

What happened?  Were you one of the people that fell asleep during the last contest to get in on the Legions private beta?  Well it's your lucky day.  The first contest is over, but a second one has begun.  30 more InstantAction users will gain access to the Legions private beta.

How do you win this contest?  Do what you were doing before, but do it harder!  Just get the most friends to sign up between now and 4/9/2008 and you've got it.  Access to the Legions beta. 

No, this isn't some cruel April Fool's Day joke either.  Log in, click that friends tab up on the top there, start adding email address and send them out!

I've created an image for those that prefer visuals.  Below you'll find an aid on how to invite friends to InstantAction.  My Photoshop skillz are lacking.

-Dr Wiley